Battles half won: India™s improbable democracy; Ashutosh Varshney; Penguin books; Rs.599; Pages 415 WHEN THE 525 PRINCELY states of the Indian subcontinent attained independence from the British Raj 67 years ago, most political pundits ” especially foreign savants ” predicted that the Centre wouldn™t hold and the newly cobbled together improbable Indian democracy would collapse into anarchy or morph into a military dictatorship. Well, they™ve been proved wrong and despite almost all the nation states of the post-colonial world obligingly proving them right, India has remained a united albeit imperfect, democracy. Currently in the midst of its 16th general election, it™s almost certain there will be smooth transfer of political power after the closure of voting on May 16 ” a scenario which still prompts astonishment the world over, not least in neighbouring Pakistan. However, according to Dr. Ashutosh Varshney, professor of international studies and social sciences at Brown University and author of several insightful books on India including Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India (2002) and India in the Era of Economic Reforms (1999), the development battles of the world™s most populous democracy have been œhalf won. œIndependent India was born with multiple projects. Three projects were specially important: securing national unity; bringing dignity and justice to those at the bottom of the social order; and eliminating mass poverty, writes Varshney in the first sentence of his new book. A collection of updated and revised essays published in various newspapers and journals, it offers penetrating insights into why despite substantially failing to attain two of the three critical objectives of the Indian state cited above, œfor the first time in human history, a poor nation has practised universal franchise for so long. These essays provide a contrarian™s point of view. Therefore for the surprising longevity of Indian democracy, Varshney gives credit to a popular hate figure and villain of Indian society ” the politician. According to him, the longevity of Indian democracy is less attributable to the reportedly ancient village democracies of India, culture or economy than to the willingness of the country™s political class cutting across all parties, to observe the basic rules of electoral democracy. But the best that can be said about the two other critical projects/objectives ” providing social justice and dignity to the sizeable majority at the base of Indian society™s inherently iniquitous caste hierarchy, and eliminating mass poverty ” the battle has been only half won. Yet even on these parameters, if north and south India are separately assessed to measure progress, the scheduled and particularly OBCs (other backward castes) in peninsular India have recorded a greater measure of social and economic progress than in the north, where caste prejudice and oppression are more firmly entrenched. Varshney ascribes this more than half battle won by the historically oppressed lower castes in south India to the early electoral seizure of political power by Dravidian and other OBC parties and their aggressive practice of reservation or affirmative action ” a bugbear…
